Intercellular communication in vascular disease

Dr. Brenda Kwak is interested in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular inflammatory diseases. At present, she is focusing on how blood flow patterns affect intercellular communication between cells within the vascular wall as well as between these cells and diverse types of leukocytes. She aims to understand how such communication processes are implicated in the protective and deleterious inflammatory responses in acute and chronic vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis, cardiac ischemia/reperfusion injury, and intracranial aneurysms. For this research, her group uses well-defined diet-induced and flow-induced in vivo disease models and sophisticated cell culture tools. In close collaboration with the Neurosurgery division at the Geneva University Hospitals, the group has initiated a biobank of intracranial aneurysm samples (AneuX) to translate key findings to human disease.

Specific expertise

Cardiovascular physiology and pathology
Pannexins
Connexins

Selected publications

Mitochondrial pannexin1 controls cardiac sensitivity to ischaemia/reperfusion injury. Rusiecka OM, Molica F, Nielsen MS, Tollance A, Morel S, Frieden M, Chanson M, Boengler K, Kwak BR. Cardiovasc Res. 2023 Aug 9:cvad120. PMID: 37556386

Primary cilia control endothelial permeability by regulating expression and location of junction proteins. Diagbouga MR, Morel S, Cayron AF, Haemmerli J, Georges M, Hierck BP, Allémann E, Lemeille S, Bijlenga P, Kwak BR. Cardiovasc Res. 2022 May 6;118(6):1583-1596. PMID: 33974072

Selective inhibition of Panx1 channels decreases hemostasis and thrombosis in vivo. F. Molica, M.J. Meens, G. Pelli, A. Hautefort, Y. Emre, B.A. Imhof, P. Fontana, E. Scemes, S. Morel, B.R. Kwak. Thromb Res. 2019; 183: 56-62

Correlating clinical risk factors and histological features in ruptured and unruptured human intracranial aneurysms: The Swiss AneuX study. S. Morel, M.R. Diagbouga, N. Dupuy, E. Sutter, V. Braunersreuther, G. Pelli, M. Corniola, R. Gondar, M. Jägersberg, N. Isidor, K. Schaller, M.L. Bochaton-Piallat, P. Bijlenga, B.R. Kwak. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2018; 77: 555-566

Pannexin1 links lymphatic function to lipid metabolism and atherosclerosis. F. Molica, M.J. Meens, J. Dubrot, A. Ehrlich, C.L. Roth, S. Morel, G. Pelli, L. Vinet, V. Braunersreuther, O. Ratib, M. Chanson, S. Hugues, E. Scemes, B.R. Kwak. Sci Reports 2017; 7: 13706

1 Apr 2022

AUTOIMMUNITY AND INFLAMMATION

GROUP LEADER

Prof. Brenda KWAK

UNIGE Faculty of medicine
Department of Pathology and Immunology

CMU
Rue Michel-Servet 1
CH - 1211 Genève 4

Brenda.KwakChanson(at)unige.ch
+ 41 22 379 56 66

Lab webpages (Department of Pathology and Immunology)

Short Bio

Brenda Kwak is Full Professor at the Department of Pathology and Immunology (PATIM) at the University of Geneva.

Already during her medical studies at the University of Amsterdam, she was intrigued by cardiovascular pathophysiology, in particular by the critical importance of balanced intercellular signaling in the prevention of disease. She joined the Physiological Laboratory at the University of Amsterdam as a PhD student to study the modulation of cardiac gap junction channels, structures of critical importance for direct intercellular communication. She obtained her PhD in 1993 followed by a S.M.B.W.O. registration in Physiology in 1997. After diverse post-doctoral training at the Universities of Utrecht and Geneva, the Swiss National Science Foundation awarded her with a Marie-Heim-Vögtlin Fellowship (2001) and subsequently a SNSF professorship (2003) to initiate her research group at the University of Geneva studying the role of gap junctional communication in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. In 2009, she was tenured as Associate Professor and promoted Full Professor in 2017.